Coincidence or Act of God?

It was Wednesday night in Beatrice, Nebraska. As was the custom on Wednesday evening, the West Side Baptist Church was holding choir practice. Usually the good choir members would arrive long before the 7:30 starting time, but on the evening of March 1, 1950, one by one, and two by two, they all had excuses for being late.

Marilyn, the church pianist overslept on her after-dinner nap, so she and her mother were late. One girl, a high school sophomore, had trouble with her homework. That delayed her, so she was late. One couple couldn't get their car started. They were supposed to pick up another couple; so all four of them were late. All 18 choir members, including the pastor and his wife, were late. All had good and differ­ent excuses. At 7:30, the time the choir practice was scheduled to begin, not one soul was in the choir loft. This had never happened before.

But that night, the only night in the history of the church that the choir was not starting to practice at 7:30, was the night that there was a gas leak in the basement of the West Side Church. At precisely the time at which the choir would have been singing, the church furnace ignited the gas leak and the whole church blew up. The furnace room was right below the choir loft!

The Lord does work in mysterious ways. That night in Beatrice it was through homework assign­ments, stalled cars, and afterdinner naps. God is and has always been in control.